


Heartlines

by sibley (ferns)



Series: Heartlines [1]
Category: The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (god i wish that were me), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coping, Dissociation, Episode: s04e01 The Flash Reborn, Healthy Relationships, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Polyamory, Time Travel, as healthily as possible, handling mental illness, slight AU, sorta. kinda. ish.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 17:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12347112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Barry still has episodes of seeing the timeline. They manage it as well as they can.





	Heartlines

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who exhibits a lot of the symptoms Barry did for almost all of this episode I was super uncomfortable with the reaction to it and the way that the episode itself was handled. So I kind of coped with that by writing this. Most of the things Barry says are lines from different comic runs, though not all of them are.

“Barry’s slipping again,” Cisco said, hugging Iris sleepily from behind.

“How far?” Iris was immediately on edge, the grip she had on her coffee mug tightening.

“Not far, otherwise I wouldn’t leave him alone. But he forgot who I am again.” There was a touch of bitterness in his voice. Not blame. Neither of them blame Barry for what he has to deal with. “Gave him the little whiteboard and the markers, though. I’m pretty sure that’ll hold him.”

“I’ll go check on him.” She turned around and kissed Cisco’s cheek. “You can call my Dad and tell him it’s another bad day.”

That’s their code for it. Bad days. Like-like Barry’s feeling moody, or he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Not like he’s not himself. Iris feels weird about calling them ‘bad days’, too. They’re bad for her, they’re bad for Cisco, they’re bad for the city sometimes, but… Barry never remembers it. It’s not a bad day for him. Just a missing one.

Barry beamed at her from where he’s sitting on their bed with his legs crossed, writing symbols and then immediately erasing them again. She smiled back at him and for a moment she considered asking if he wants to go sit on the couch with her, but then his face crumples and he lets out a small sobbing sound.

“Barry?” Iris asked, concerned, and then Barry’s face filled with confusion.

“Still a little wobbly and a little slow,” he said, reaching up to rub his temples. “Whatever that Vibe kid did to me really messed me up.”

Iris’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, Barry. What do you see?”

She remembered being fifteen and asking him that when he whispered that sometimes he saw things that Iris couldn’t see or started believing in things so strongly that he didn’t know how to handle it. She’d been the one who encouraged him to write about them and put them on his blog. To put the delusions down somewhere to work through them without feeding into them.

“I thought we were fleeing from another angry mob instead of prepping for your huge interview tomorrow,” Barry tilted his head and smiled before his eyebrows furrowed and he chewed on his lower lip. “Manny, you can’t keep running away.”

“Nobody’s running away,” Iris promised as she sat down next to him. It looked like he’d slipped a lot farther than she and Cisco had both thought. “Why don’t you tell me some more?”

That was the biggest thing she and Cisco had found worked the best. They would ask Barry what he was seeing and if he could tell them about it and eventually he would just… Run out of steam and snap out of it. Not quickly, but… It was a _reliable_ method not a fast-acting one.

“I saw him at Iron Heights today,” Barry whispered miserably. Iris’s mind immediately went to Henry, but Barry’s next words changed that. “He looked-good. Better than he did when I put him there. I know you’re not listening, Iris. Iris. I can’t tell Iris, Wally, I _can’t._ Not after Daniel. I just figure living indoors should keep me out of their reach, Hartley.”

“Hartley?” Iris asked. That was the first time he’d ever mentioned Hartley.

“For what it’s worth, it’s cool with me… You and Hartley.” Barry smiled thinly. “What is this? Why the mannequins? Why the games? Games-no, no, no, that’s _wrong,_ is this all a game to you?”

“No games, Barry,” Iris promised as she patted his hand.

“This museum chronicles my life from start to finish. And I’m not ready for all the details.” Barry looked down. Iris watched him write on the board.

“That looks really nice, Bar. Why don’t you tell me about the stars again?”

“Stars!” Barry shouted in agreement. “Stars, stars, stars, they’re so lovely, Iris, those ones look like a flower if you trace them together. Balloon.”

“Balloon?” The corner of Iris’s mouth quirked up.

“We’re on the surface of a balloon,” Barry said seriously. “All the galaxies and all the stars. It’s a balloon. The past is inside of it and the future is all around us on the outside of it. Balloon.”

“That’s a very interesting way of looking at things.” Iris patted his hand as the bedroom door opened and Cisco came in.

“I’m getting back in bed,” he announced, taking off his shirt. Iris rolled her eyes and Cisco pointed at her. “If I don’t have work this morning because of Barry, you’d better believe I’m getting back in bed.”

Barry beamed at him. “When were you going to tell me he was still alive?”

Cisco sighed and squeezed Barry’s shoulder as he got back in bed. “Wanna cuddle, Bar?”

“Oh, August, don’t stop, please don’t stop. Tell me you didn’t do this, August.” Barry laid down next to him and reached out to play with Cisco’s hair. “My father was innocent and spent fifteen years in prison because the police were _wrong._ What if you’re wrong? Wrong, wrong, wrong, the stars are all wrong tonight. I can’t fix them.” His eyes filled with tears. “I can’t fix the stars.”

“I’m sorry they’re wrong, Barry.” Cisco rubbed his thumb over Barry’s cheek. “Do you think I can help you fix them?”

“Stars are gone,” Barry said numbly. He looked at Cisco with a blank expression. “Stars. Hal. Hal. Seriously, Hal? C’mon, give back my phone and enjoy the performance. Is this the kind of trouble you had in mind? Operating this thing looks simple, really. All I have to do is engage these levers-” Barry broke off like he was listening to someone else respond. “Get away from those children!”

“Okay.” Cisco swallowed thickly. He felt like he was going to cry. Dealing with Barry on top of anything else-getting mad at Barry for it wasn’t _fair._ Barry couldn’t control it. None of them could. Cisco had offered to take his speed away for a few days just to see if that had any kind of effect on the slipping episodes, but it hadn’t helped. Nothing helped.

Iris moved so she was lying next to Barry on the other side. “Barry? Why don’t you talk about the stars some more?”

Stars came up a lot. So did Iris and Nora.

“Stars. Stars. Stars. They’re all dead, they’re gone and I don’t know when they’ll come back, they’re all gone, they’re all gone, I want my Mommy and Daddy where did you take them I want my Mommy. Put me down! Please let me go!” Barry started kicking and Cisco sat up fast, ready to restrain him if he had to. “I did it! I won first place! Can I get a comic? My Dad didn’t do those things! I don’t believe you! I wanna see my Mom!”

“Barry!” Iris yelled, squeezing his hand tightly. “Barry, it’s not real. You’re not there. It’s okay. Listen to us!”

Barry calmed down a little bit. “Iris? Iris, Darryl told me something today.”

“What did he tell you?” Iris murmured, petting Barry’s hair and trying to get him to stop shaking.

“He told me… He told… He…” Barry’s eyes blinked open and he yawned. “Cisco, my head hurts. Stars.”

“Stars,” Cisco agreed. He kissed Barry’s forehead. “Are they pretty? Do you want to draw them?”

Barry eagerly accepted his whiteboard again and erased what he had written before starting to draw some more, excitedly talking about stars as he did so.

About halfway through he stopped, looked at what he had written, and then looked up at Iris and Cisco. “This is… Gibberish.”

“Still slipping?” Iris asked, kissing his forehead in the same spot that Cisco had.

Barry shook his head no. “I slipped?”

“Yeah, big time.” Cisco traced his thumb in circles on Barry’s hip. “Remember anything?”

Sometimes, Barry remembered things. Not often. But sometimes.

“I remember-” Barry paused. “Something. There was… There was a man, and he looked a lot like me, and he had-he had all this stuff attached to his body, I think he was gonna-was gonna hurt himself. I _think._ And there was…” Barry flushed. “Oh, man. There was another guy, and a girl, it wasn’t you guys and they were kissing me and, uh, and-” He shook his head. “I _swear_ I’ve seen him before, the guy, but I don’t remember where.”

Iris kissed the back of his neck where it met his shoulders. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispered. That’s what she said every time and all three of them knew it. And they hadn’t managed to figure it out yet. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

* * *

Caitlin called it a dissociation log. To write down when the slips happened, how long they happened for, what they could remember him saying during them, things like that. Barry helped Cisco fill it out this time, nervously squeezing his knees together.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, looking up. “I’m sorry that I-you can leave. I-you can leave me, if you want, and just date Iris. That’s okay with me.”

“What?” Cisco’s head whipped around. “No, Barry. Unless you want to break up with me…?”

“No, no, I-why don’t you? Why don’t you leave me? I’m-” Barry’s hands twisted in his lap. “I’m a time bomb. I don’t know what I’m doing with myself when I slip and-and I might hurt someone, I might hurt _you_ or _Iris_ and-”

“You’re not going to,” Cisco said soothingly. “You haven’t been violent before. And I’m probably the one person on Earth with powers tailor-made to stop you if you hurt someone. Cindy will help if I ask. Does that make you feel a little better?”

Barry looked down and nodded just a little bit. “I...I’d never hurt you on purpose. _Never._ You know that, right?”

Cisco gave him a kiss. “I know. It’s okay. We’re figuring this out together, remember?”

* * *

Iris rolled over and looked at Barry as he made an uncomfortable noise for the one hundredth time that night. He was asleep, that was for sure, but his fingers and eyelids were twitching. Deep sleep. Probably nightmares.

Cisco was holding his hand gently, squeezing it every few seconds. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep because of Barry either.

“Is he slipping?” Iris whispered. If he wasn’t, it was best not to wake Barry up.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” Cisco answered truthfully. “He doesn’t slip in his sleep, not ever.” He hesitated. “I’m scared, Iris. Not of Barry, but… For him. I’m really worried about him. What if this doesn’t stop happening? What if we _don’t_ figure it out?”

“Then we’ll learn how to live with it,” Iris said firmly. “We’ll learn how to handle it. _All_ of us. You, me, Barry, Dad, Wally… We’ll figure out something. A way for Barry to cope with it. I don’t think medication would work on him now that he’s a speedster, but… We’ll work something out. We have to. It doesn’t matter if we figure out how to go away, what matters is us figuring out how to live with it. This is a part of our lives now.”

Cisco took a shaky breath. “It’s not going to stop, is it?”

Iris shook her head, feeling numb. “I’m not a doctor. But-but I don’t think it will. And that’s okay. He’s still our Barry.”

“Our Barry,” Cisco agreed.

* * *

 

Barry starts up his blog again.

He writes about the stuff he sees when he’s slipping alongside the other things he used to write about, the delusions and the hallucinations and the other things that never got properly diagnosed. Cisco helps and so does Iris. They don’t look at his blog very often, but they help him get all of his thoughts organized so can write about seeing these things without giving away that he’s the Flash.

They don’t figure out how to stop the time slipping.

But they learn to deal with it.

Barry slipped the first time he holds Dawn (still named Henry at that time), only it had been the good kind of slipping. He’s identified that there’s a difference. The good kind lets him see things that are happening currently and things in the timeline, while the bad kind just throws him through the timeline like a leaf on a rocky river. He cried and clung to their daughter and saw a hundred different things at once.

He slipped hard when he sees Oliver again, but it’s the bad kind where he starts frantically scribbling on the walls. Cisco had to chase Oliver out and sat with Barry for six hours while waiting for Iris to get there. Barry woke up and cried for forty-five minutes.

Again when Cindy showed up to take Cisco out on a date and her bright shimmering portal brought the memories of being trapped in the speedforce crashing back hard.

Again when Cisco doesn’t come back home for three weeks after heading to Earth-19 intent on-something that they won’t tell him because they don’t want him to worry. But the second that Cisco gets back, bleeding and supported by Cindy and dragging a barely-breathing body with him, Barry slips and doesn’t come out for over a day and wakes up to find his boyfriend alive and his girlfriend with nerves frayed to the point of snapping.

It can happen at any time, really, but… Iris and Cisco find the triggers and cut them out. Even _saying_ the word “speedforce” is sometimes enough to get Barry to start slipping, so they stop saying it. They help as much as they possibly can.

Barry still has episodes often.

They’re living with it. He’s living with it. They’re figuring it out. One day at a time.

It never stops, but it gets better.


End file.
